Confused. . . Should I Switch Foods?

Hello,

Currently I feed my 8 outdoor cats this: Cat Chow Naturals Grain Free Cat Food | Purina.

I just switched to that within the last year, after Purina discontinued their Healthy Weight cat food.

They were eating Healthy Weight, Original Purina cat chow, or the Gentle purina formula before that for the past few years. All corn based foods. Years ago when they were younger they did eat the cheapest dry from the store.

Here is my problem. I read these articles:

It’s Not Just Grain-Free: An Update on Diet-Associated Dilated Cardiomyopathy

A broken heart: Risk of heart disease in boutique or grain-free diets and exotic ingredients

Linking Diet to Dilated Cardiomyopathy (DCM) • MSPCA-Angell

And now I don't know if I should switch their food back to corn based.

2 of them (Rusty who is 19 lbs and Runty who also has megacolon) are obese. That is part of the reason I switched off corn. Although they haven't lost any weight. Since they are outside I can't diet them. I feed the amount for 8 cats but they probably eat more than they are supposed to. Runty also gets wet food/miralax 2x a day for his megacolon.

Does anyone think I should switch to the non grain-free version of Purina naturals after readng those articles? Even though they have corn? We already ordered a more standard food to switch our dog off grain free.

I didn't know Naturals has a grain-free formula! I don't think there's a huge difference between cassava flour and corn so if you switched to regular Naturals I think that would be fine. But cat food has added taurine so the grain-free dog food problem shouldn't affect cats anyway. (OK, I read the articles and I guess they've found that it's not all about taurine. But even so, it hasn't affected cats so far.)

Also---can you give them more canned food? The big can of Special Kitty is only $1.08 and would give them each almost 3 ounces. The extra meat and moisture is good for them.

Dental disease and kidney disease are far more likely to affect cats who eat dry food than heart disease from boutique ingredients.

I can only imagine the economics of 8 cats. But I believe the cheapest wet food is still better for them than the best dry food. There's a recent thread about Friskies vs Fancy Feast. If the biggest thing going against Friskies is that they include rice and have their meat to organs ratio backwards, that's still better than any of your dry choices.

If they are indoor-outdoor or outdoor cats, what about several wet feeds through the day and let them make up the difference through hunting?

Commercial cat food didn't exist until a little more than 100 years ago. Before that, they fed themselves. They were often employed in granaries because they would eat the rodents and not touch the grains. So now I find it frustratingly ironic and cruel that when we decided to feed them, we skip the rodents and give them the grains.

In general most of the problems have been seen in dogs - who are not obligate carnivores. Cats are obligate carnivores.

Also there is a huge difference between taurine in cats and taurine in dogs since dogs actually create their own taurine and cats do not. So if it has something to do with that it seems odd that cats and dogs would have problems due to the same thing.

I am suspicious of this research in general as I am wondering if it might be funded by companies that were seeing their customers flocking to grain free options. I also don't think all grain free diets are necessarily a problem, there is a lot of research left to be done to actually see what specifically is the problem.

NewYork1303 said:

In general most of the problems have been seen in dogs - who are not obligate carnivores. Cats are obligate carnivores.

Click to expand...

Yeah...that's what I thought. It did mention cats though so I was unsure.
I think the dog thing is real though. The FDA released a statement about it and our dog's vet said it was a problem too. They know that people will think that it is funded by companies. Currently they are trying to find the exact cause but many dogs started having heart issues while on grain free so to be safe they are recommending that people switch.

They have answers to almost all questions here: Taurine DCM FAQ and answers - Taurine DCM

FDA Investigating Potential Connection Between Diet and Cases of Canine Heart Disease

https://taurinedcm.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/FDA-2nd-publication.pdf

My dog isn't on a grain free diet since I don't personally think they make sense for dogs (since they aren't obligate carnivores). Corn free yes, but not grain free.

It does come down a lot to breeds as well. My guess is that the food is one factor and there are many others that contribute as well. I think there is something here, but vets don't know what it is yet and neither do the FDA unfortunately.

My main concern is the very real backlash in these studies on raw diets and homemade diets. It is so hard to actually compare these diets since someone can do a raw diet well or do one very very poorly.

All of my pets eat a combination of kibble, wet food, and raw food, with the hope being this will give them the best overall balance since its hard to trust anything when vets prescribe diets chock filled with corn (I'm looking at you Hills), and companies fund research to kill any new company that's having success.

Historically, cats suffering from DCM was a huge problem. And then, minimum levels of taurine were established for cat foods, and DCM incidents in cats vanished. So it's pretty clear any cat food that meets AAFCO minimums will be fine. The bigger health concerns for cats are kidney and urinary tract problems, so sticking to wet food and avoiding fish are better preventative dietary measures to take.

Regarding dogs and DCM: at this point there is zero proof what exactly is causing it, just anecdotal correlations. (Sometimes dogs with DCM eating grain free were switched to a different grain free food, and they got better.) It is obvious that the FDA is very biased toward helping big pet food companies and hurting smaller ones, especially in the past couple of years (mishandling samples, forcing voluntary recalls, ignoring quality problems at big pet food companies). It's pretty irresponsible for them to make sweeping statements about grain free foods without any studies, but vets are listening to them anyway. And yes, dogs are not obligate carnivores, meaning they can eat plants, but they are still carnivores, not omnivores. That is an indisputable fact. I would be very interested to see if any non-genetically predisposed dogs have this problem on a correctly made diet with less than 20% carbs. I'm sure loading a dog's food with potatoes and peas is not good for them, but that doesn't mean doing the same thing with grains is good either.